Diary Entry - November

We began after half term with ice breaker activities and some primate-related fun. The original members of the STEM club (all in year 8) were then challenged to teach the new recruits about enrichment and the mandrills we would be working with at Chester Zoo.

November 13th was our first press day. A photographer and journalist from local papers, Teesdale Mercury and The Northern Echo visited the school and students had photos and interviews for the press.

November 13th was also the submission day of the first video entry to Rolls-Royce. After a hectic two weeks of filming everything in school from STEM club activities to the choir, we submitted the video for editing.

November 25th, we visited the zoo as part of the research and development phase of the project. We met with the zoo keepers to gain ideas from their experience. The keepers explained the restrictions on the devices we could build including the materials we can use. We also met with Dr. Sean O’Hara (University of Liverpool) for the first time and discussed what he wanted to get out the project in his research part.

The next few weeks of November and December will be spent designing the devices. The students are working in mixed age groups to produce devices that will enrich the lives of the mandrill group we have seen. They will be drawing their devices initially by hand but we are aiming to move to CAD packages to draw detailed specifications of their work in the coming weeks.

We are currently putting together the next instalment of the video diaries.

On December the 9th, some of the students will be accompanying me on the local radio station, Radio Teesdale.

Back to main school page